The Online Professional Seminar?

Most people still like to learn from and with other people. Face-to-face still has its charms.

In the wake of the great e-commerce blowout trails its offspring,
e-learning. We are told that e-learning is, in the language of
tech-speak, the "killer application"—a $720 billion dollar
business and a chance to revolutionize learning. Traditional education,
now thought to be hopelessly passé by the e-evangelists, is damned
as teacher-centric and boring. E-education, these enthusiasts claim, is
learner-creative and exciting. Anytime, anywhere learning (click) will
replace "this time, this place" (brick) education any day now—if
only more people got it.

Most people still like to learn from and with other
people. Face-to-face still has its charms.

Ah, here is the rub in e-education: Most people still like to learn
from and with other people. Face-to-face still has its
charms and, of course, any of us who has been fortunate enough to
experience a great teacher, knows that real learning, the kind that
lights our cranial fires, is social not asocial or anti-social. Our
brains are literally shaped by social interaction.

Education means to draw out, not to put in. Unfortunately, most of
e-learning not only subscribes to the putting-in model, but also
conflates training with education. Training is useful in learning a
skill; education is essential for thinking.

Thus, most of the e-learning companies are approaching
location-independent learning from the wrong end of the learning
spectrum. They put text on the screen, "stream" some canned video, and
ask the learner to click through multiple Web pages in search of
packaged answers. Is it any wonder that most e-learning programs and
companies end up on the e-business scrap heap? Not only is this type of
learning boring, it is also ineffective. And this is a shame because
the possibilities of the Internet are enormous.

The development of electronic networking may be a more powerful
force than the creation of the printing press. It can reach people
everywhere on the planet and connect them in a way that is truly
revolutionary. The Internet can do what no government or company can
do: It can create a global society where knowledge can be used to meet
urgent needs.

We need to think of e-learning as an extension of
‘r-learning’—real learning—and blend the two
into a learning environment that is based on inquiry, discovery, and
experimentation.

Sometimes e-evangelists speak of the teacher as an obstacle to be
overcome: "No more sage on the stage, now guides on the side." I would
argue that this position is exactly wrong. Teachers inspire, and if
they are talented and supported, can spark the social excitement that
is the basis of real learning. We need to think of e-learning as an
extension of "r-learning"—real learning—and blend the two
into a learning environment that is based on inquiry, discovery, and
experimentation. We learn by doing, and we learn by making mistakes.
Whether it is skill-building or education, learning is a process of
trial and error; the more complex and abstract the learning goal, the
more time and mental space are needed to make errors. All discoveries
are the result of hundreds of errors.

If e-learning were truly a discovery environment, it would
revolutionize the field of professional development, radically altering
the passive, one-shot model we now employ to make it, instead, a model
of continuous discovery and professional growth.

What would be the elements of this model? How could we elevate
teaching in the new learning environment? Here are some thoughts:

Principle 1: We learn by doing. From John Dewey to the
present, cognitive theory and classroom practice tell us that we are
active learners. The e-evangelists are right about this: The
bureaucratic, seat-time model of education is the opposite of active
learning. In an era when performance can trump credentials in
importance, our model for learning must be active and dynamic.

This is where the blending of on-site and on-time learning can be
extraordinarily exciting. By combining face-to-face seminars and
symposiums with online simulations, students will be able to actually
"play" with materials, pose increasingly important and analytic
questions, and avoid canned answers. This approach calls for a highly
interactive, discovery-based Internet environment. Drawing on game
theory and case studies, the discovery-based online curriculum promises
to be genuinely learner-centered, in the sense that a Socratic dialogue
is learner-centered.

Principle 2: Learning requires social interaction. One of
the most disconcerting sights of modern life is to witness whole
offices where everybody is staring at a computer screen—the
faint blue glow replacing the warmer hues of human contact, humor,
and feeling.

I'm sure that attachment theorists in the coming era (if there are
any) will write earnest treatises about the symbiotic relationship
between the television monitor and the human heart. But let's hope
there are a few humanists left who believe genuine attachment is always
heart to heart. A vast literature gives empirical support to the
position that learning is social. We learn from others in a thousand
large and small ways, including body language, facial expression, and
tone of voice. We learn more by seeing ourselves in the reflection of
others than by seeing ourselves in the reflection of ourselves. Looking
into the mirror may help introspection and self-analysis, but if taken
to excess, it runs the risk of solipsism and self-absorption.

After all, the end goal of education is transcendence and
transformation. A fully educated mind is a mind-within-the-world, not a
mind-within-the-mind. To make this outward journey, we need others to
encourage us, to correct us, and to reward us. One does not grow
intellectually in a knowledge vacuum; the garden of knowledge is
teeming with life, paradox, and struggle.

Thus, the online part of a genuine learning environment must include
plenty of room for continuous dialogue, interaction, and free-flowing
argumentation. We should avoid "chat rooms" (really, gossip rooms) and
create seminar rooms where the conversation is guided by the quest for
truth.

Principle 3: Learning requires structure. One of the key
misperceptions of many of the e-evangelists is that learning is
really an accumulation process in which random facts are collected.
When one has collected enough random facts, one is educated. In this
view, television quiz shows are great marvels of education. Random
fact collection is to education as nails are to building a house.
Nails are necessary, but if you don't know where to hammer them in,
they are useless, even dangerous, in constructing a house. We learn
when facts are put into meaningful relationships to each other. This
is the exciting part of learning: discovery, unexpected patterns, and
relationships.

This principle has significant implications for online learning.
Access to the World Wide Web is like immediate access to a worldwide
library, although the Internet library also includes comics and
pornography. Roaming aimlessly through a library does not produce
knowledge. The use of the Internet for program development means
creating an environment where there is a balance between interest and
curriculum structure.

Virtual education is a misnomer—one cannot
become a mind-within-the-world without the help of real people, real
struggle, and real discovery.

Structure does not imply rigidity or excessive control; it suggests
direction and purpose. Like any classroom, the online classroom needs
to be safe, purposeful, and have clearly defined objectives and goals.
This does not mean that the online classroom is all about "drill and
kill"—just the opposite. It means that the teacher must
imaginatively lead students in certain directions, while allowing for
different learning styles and individual interests. When you think
about it, that is what all good teachers do.

Principle 4: Learning is personal. If humans were
machines, then learning could be batch-processed and impersonally
administered. But, alas, for some in the standardization movement,
humans are contrary, difficult, and resist authority. Repression is
not the same as expression. We may try to regiment learning, but
individuals rebel.

Much of what I see in the way of professional development on the Web
is impersonal and machine-like (and, by the way, having a cute icon to
follow is not what I mean by personal). The very expression "clicking
through" has a mechanical flavor that reminds one more of
mindlessness than mindfulness.

Online learning ought to be as personal as a seminar; the site you
visit really ought to be the home to which you return. Emotional safety
and groundedness are the signatures of a healthy learning environment.
With the arrival of the broadband and interactive television, our
chances of creating a personal online learning environment are
enhanced.

We as educators ought to embrace online learning and develop a new
literacy. We should insist that professional development is both
professional and developmental. And we should be careful to use online
learning to enhance face-to-face learningand not accept glib sales
pitches about a virtual learning miracle that will mysteriously
eliminate people.

Virtual education is a misnomer—one cannot become a
mind-within-the-world without the help of real people, real struggle,
and real discovery.

Peter W. Cookson Jr. is the director of the Center for
Educational Outreach and Innovation at Teachers College, Columbia
University, in New York City. He serves as the president of
TCinnovations and has been assigned by Teachers College to create
professional programs for teachers around the country.

Peter W. Cookson Jr. is the director of the Center for Educational
Outreach and Innovation at Teachers College, Columbia University, in
New York City. He serves as the president of TCinnovations and has been
assigned by Teachers College to create professional programs for
teachers around the country.

Vol. 21, Issue 3, Pages 47, 60

Published in Print: September 19, 2001, as The Online Professional Seminar?

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